


Unbroken

by Kailene



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Big Brother Dean, Brotherly Bonding, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s06e12 Like a Virgin, Family, Gen, Light Angst, Protective Dean Winchester, Season/Series 06, Upset Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-09 23:56:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2002953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kailene/pseuds/Kailene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's soul has been restored, Dean finally has his little brother back...but he wakes in the middle of the night to find Sam's bed empty and his brother no where to be found.<br/>Takes place after S6E12, "Like A Virgin."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, Author's Note...? Hmm, I've only recently discovered this site, with Thanks going to LoveThemWinchesters and Riathe Mai for that, and am truly enjoying all the stories here and I've decided to add mine to the mix as well, starting at the beginning with the very first Supernatural story I wrote. 
> 
> This had originally started out as a short, simple, one-shot, at the time needing some brotherly love between the boys that was way over due, but it got away from me and ended up being a couple of chapters. 
> 
> HUGS to LoveThemWinchesters for all her help, guidance, and advice on posting and ideas, and to Riathe Mai, for well...everything. Thank you both.

Dean’s eyes snapped open, his mind and body instantly awake despite his brief, yet exhausted sleep. His hand tightened around the hilt of the knife he kept underneath his pillow. He didn’t even remember reaching for it. 

He held himself perfectly still and scanned the darkened room around him. Nothing seemed out of place, but his well-honed hunter’s instincts were screaming at him. 

Move now. Something was wrong. 

He took a deep breath to slow the rush of adrenaline coursing through him. They were safe. The Salvage Yard was protected by every ward, sigil, devil’s trap, and anything else they could think of to keep just about any being out. 

Except maybe for those blasted rogue Angels. But, Dean knew that even that wasn’t the case. 

No, it wasn’t that something was wrong, he realized with sudden clarity. 

It was that something was missing. 

The old house was about the closest thing they had that the two of them thought of as a home. He knew every creak and groan that it made. It was the absence of one noise in particular that stopped him cold. That one missing sound had woken him from a dead sleep. 

A lifetime of sharing rooms had made it a normal, expected part of everyday life. Dean would never admit just how hard it had been to adjust to the silence during Sam’s stint at Stanford; or that even the whiskey that had gotten him through the days and having Lisa tucked by his side at night hadn’t been nearly enough to fill the void, or ease the horror of his nightmares while his little brother had been trapped in The Cage. 

The simple sound of hearing his brother’s deep, even breath while sleeping nearby gave him a sense of security and safety from the chaos that was their lives. 

And that sound was suddenly missing. 

Dean’s over-protective-big-brother-mother-hen mode, which had already been working in overdrive this last week, kicked up a notch. “Sam?” He sat up quickly, swinging his legs out of bed and standing up all in one motion. He spun around in the dim room, looking for signs of where his absent brother could be. 

Sam’s bed was empty, blankets tossed carelessly in a heap to one side. “Okay Dean, you’re being ridiculous. Over reacting. It’s 3am, where could he have gone? He’s probably just in the bathroom.” 

His frown and worry only deepened when he glanced out the bedroom door and took in the darkened and empty bathroom across the hall. His gaze slid to the chair in the corner of the small bedroom that they had shared since childhood. Sam’s jeans and hoodie were gone. Boots that had been discarded hours earlier were no longer there. 

Dean cursed vehemently to himself. Where could he have gone? He growled low in his throat, running a hand roughly through his short hair. “What am I thinking? This is freakin’ Sam where talking about. God only knows what’s going on in that ginormous brain of his. He could be anywhere.” 

A thousand different scenarios raced through Dean’s mind as he crossed the room and threw on his own clothes. His heart stopped and his blood ran cold each time he came to the same conclusion. 

The Wall had cracked. 

Dean’s stomach clenched at the thought of Sam out there somewhere. Running. Alone and terrified, his mind shattered; not knowing reality from the demons trapped in his own psyche. 

“Sammy!” Dean ran out of the bedroom, hopping on one foot as he quickly tried to force on his other boot. He rounded the corner into the dimly lit hallway, his thoughts tunneling to the single task of finding his little brother. Distracted and already off balance as he fought with his boot, he forgot about the pile of ancient texts that were precariously stacked in the corner. 

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” He stepped wide to avoid the pile, his arms shooting out to try to catch the falling books. It was a futile effort. Dean’s shoulder slammed hard into the wall as he stumbled, the books tumbling nosily in all directions. 

Dean stepped quickly and carefully over the books, knowing even in his anxious rush it would be his head on a platter if he damaged any of them. Once clear, he brought his head up. 

Right into the muzzle of Bobby’s sawed-off. 

Years of training took over on instinct. Reeling backwards, he knocked the shotgun out of his face, hands going up on either side of his head in a non-threatening manner. 

“It’s me! It’s me, Dean,” he yelled frantically. “Whoa, Bobby, stand down.” 

“Dean!” Bobby ground out, snapping his gun to the side. “Damn idjit! What the hell ya’ doin at this ungodly hour?” 

Dean took a steadying breath, his heart still up in his throat somewhere. “Sam’s not in bed,” he said simply, as if that explained everything. And to Dean it did. 

“Well, let me alert the media,” Bobby deadpanned. 

Dean huffed out an annoyed breath as he stepped around the older hunter, reaching the staircase and taking the steps two at a time, yelling for his brother once again. “Sammy! Dammit, where are you?” 

“He probably couldn’t sleep,” Bobby said, following Dean down the stairs. “Dagnabbit boy, will you slow up. This old body don’t move like it used to, you know.” 

Dean reluctantly stopped half-way down the stairs and turned. “Bobby-” 

Bobby cut him off. “Listen, I know what you’re worried about, kid. I’ve been worried about the same thing. If that Wall had broken, even a little, we woulda known. There is no way that he woulda been able to make it out of this house in that condition without us knowing. Your brother was fine a few hours ago, a little quieter maybe, but still fine. I’m sure he’s just looking for some time by himself.” 

Dean glared at Bobby before he turned and once again started down the stairs, his expression saying all too clear, Stay outta my way. This is Sammy we’re talking about. I don’t have time for this. 

Unfazed, Bobby merely followed him down the stairs. “Dean, you’ve been hovering around the poor kid round the clock like a nervous new mother since Death left. You only let him out of your sight to go to the bathroom, for pete’s sake, and even then you wait outside the door.” 

Dean weaved his way through the labyrinthine maze of old books and maps that were stored seemingly haphazardly in the hallway of the first floor. He made his way towards the small room in the front of the house that was used for a combination office, library, and spare sleeping area, hoping that his brother was just doing his geek thing and had plugged himself into his laptop and lost track of time. 

“Yeah, ‘a little quieter’,” Dean threw back bitingly, ignoring everything else that had been said and giving the older hunter an exasperated look, silently berating himself for not noticing the change, however slight, in his brother earlier. “Bobby, we both know that a Sammy being quiet is a Sammy thinking. The kid’s brain never stops for cryin’ out loud. Problems need answers; puzzles need solutions…Dammit all to hell!” Dean threw his arms up, growling as he spun in a circle around the empty office, knowing as he did that it would be incredibly hard to miss his six foot four little brother. 

He crossed into the living room, hands tightly fisted by his side, jaw clenching and unclenching to try to ebb the growing pit of dread. “Come on Sammy; give me a break here, will ya. The place isn’t that friggin’ big,” Dean mumbled, running a rough hand down his face as he took in the empty couches and chairs around him. 

The fact that he wasn’t finding anything out of place; no chairs overturned, windows broken, or signs of any type of struggle didn’t make him feel any better, if anything it just made things worse. It only confirmed to him that his over-analyzing, over-thinking, guilt-ridden, emo-brother had left on his own. 

Dean pulled back the wrinkled, yellowing curtains and looked out the front windows of the old house. “His body was wandering around for over a year without him, Bobby,” he said, continuing his rant. “You know as well as I do that we can tell him till we’re blue in the face that he’s not responsible for anything that happened while he was soulless but he’s still gonna turn every little stone over in his mind and blame himself. Beating himself up for every little thing that happened. I can’t let him do that. I won’t let him do that.” 

Dean’s head snapped around abruptly, his body frozen in place momentarily at the sudden sound that broke through the silence of the early morning. He’d have recognized that sound anywhere. 

“Sonuvabitch!” 

“Oh balls!” Bobby grumbled, following Dean as he took off through the living room and kitchen towards the back door, the unmistakable low rumble of the Impala filling the night air. “What the hell is that boy doin now?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any errors in this chapter belong to me, as I changed and added some things after it had been edited. Sorry Riathe Mai...I couldn't help myself.

Dean bolted through the kitchen, grabbing his worn leather jacket off the back of the wooden chair. He skidded to a halt just long enough to open the back door. 

And froze in the doorway. 

Out in the lot, the Impala was still exactly where he’d left it. The driver’s side door was closed and even in the dim light Dean could see that the seat was empty. The engine was running; gray plumes of smoke rising up into the night from the tailpipe. In a moment of numb panic, Dean followed their trail. Sitting on the trunk of the car, as though he didn’t have a care in the world—as though Dean wouldn’t be tearing through the house like a madman at his disappearance—was Sam. 

Dean counted to ten. 

Twice. 

In Latin. 

Backwards. 

It didn’t help. He sometimes wondered if anything would. 

Dean buttoned up his leather jacket and stepped out into the cold, dark South Dakota night, his heart slowly settling back into its rightful place in his chest. He eased the door closed behind him, the rickety, wooden steps squeaked in protest as he stepped off the porch. He walked slowly across the yard, the crunching of the stones under his boots reverberating loudly off the stacks of junk cars piled around them. 

Sam hadn’t moved a muscle since he had opened the door, and Dean took in his pose as he crossed the yard. His arms were folded underneath the back of his head, and his breathing was deep and even. To anyone one else looking, he would have appeared to be simply relaxing, or even asleep. But Dean wasn’t just anybody. He had spent his entire life watching his little brother and could decipher every movement, no matter how subtle it was. 

He knew that the relaxed demeanor was deceiving. Sam had undoubtedly come out here earlier to go for a walk to try to clear his mind and to organize the myriad of thoughts that were running rampant in his head. Dean knew that his little brother was deep in thought, but had been aware of his presence as soon he had opened the back door. 

As Dean came to stand beside the car, Sam sat up slowly and rested his feet on the back bumper. Slipping his right hand into his pocket, he pulled out his iPod and headphones for his brother to see before tucking them back into his pocket. Dean nodded his head at the silent explanation and apology for worrying him, and for not responding when he knew instinctively that Dean must have been going crazy looking for him. 

Dean slid onto to the back of the Impala’s trunk, right shoulder touching his little brother’s, giving him his silent support and letting him know that he was there for him if he needed him. 

It had been a little over a week since Death had gone into The Cage and retrieved Sam’s soul, finally freeing it from Lucifer and Michael’s grasp and returning it to its rightful home. It had taken hours for the tremors and shaking to stop once he had stopped screaming; and Sam hadn’t regained consciousness the entire time, just mumbling incoherently before eventually slipping into a deep sleep. 

Dean had kept up a constant vigil by his bedside. Not even Bobby’s threat of bodily harm if he didn’t get some rest himself or Castiel’s numerous reassurances that Sam was indeed simply deep in sleep had set Dean’s mind at ease. Constant doubts kept circling through his mind. Had he made the right decision? Was freeing Sam’s soul from The Cage, with all the uncertainty that went with that, really in Sam’s best interest or was he just being selfish in wanting his little brother back? Had he doomed Sam to a life of intense psychic pain and torment? 

Contrary to what everyone thought, he had heard what had been said around him. The fact that the Angles, Demons and humans were in agreement—something that in his thirty odd years of life hadn’t happened—that Sam’s soul was beyond repair, and that resouling him shouldn’t be done and wouldn’t work; hadn’t escaped him. But none of that had mattered. This was his baby brother they were talking about. His Sammy. The thought of leaving him locked up forever as the plaything for two psychotic Archangels had never been an option. Whatever pain and torment his little brother may experience, he would fix it. That was his job. 

Three days later, Sam had woken up. The moment that Dean saw his hazel eyes looking at him, he knew he had made the right decision. 

He had his brother back. 

“It’s good to be home.” Sam’s quiet voice tore Dean away from his inner thoughts. His brother’s gaze was fixed on the distant horizon. Dean studied his little brother, trying to get a read on his thoughts and state of mind. The significance of where they were sitting was not lost on him. Though the Impala was his baby, he knew how much it also meant to his brother. It was a place of refuge, of childhood memories, and the only constant that his baby brother had ever known. Another member of their family; their home. Feeling the familiar, comforting rumble of the Impala humming underneath him, Dean knew that Sam wasn’t only talking about getting his soul back. 

Sam tucked his hands into his pockets as he continued, a faraway look in his eyes. “This is the last clear memory that I have.” His voice was soft, almost reflective, tinged with emotions that Dean couldn’t quite identify. “That I know is completely me. 

“Well,” he laughed bitterly, “not only me, exactly. Cause of Luci and all, but at least I know I was all intact.” 

“Sammy.” 

Sam leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees as his hands hung loosely between his legs. He tipped his head up, staring out into the vast nighttime sky. 

Dean sat quietly beside him, mirroring Sam’s pose, waiting patiently for his little brother to continue. This was the way it had been since his brother woke up. The conversations seemed disjointed, unconnected; fragments of random thoughts and memories fighting to be put in some sort of order. Like a giant intangible puzzle; and Dean vowed to do everything in his power to put as many of the pieces back together as he could. 

“I can feel it, you know,” Sam said suddenly, looking briefly over at his brother before casting his gaze once again at the stars. “The barrier. In the back of my mind.” 

His brow furrowed as he tilted his head in thought, as though trying to find the words to describe something he himself didn’t understand. “It’s like this … constant niggling at the back of my mind, you know. Not painful exactly, just, always there. This persistent feeling that I’m missing something. That there’s something important I need to do.” He dropped his head and brushed a hand through his hair. A gesture that was so Sammy that Dean’s heart caught in his throat. 

Dean gripped Sam’s shoulder and turned him so they faced each other. “Look at me,” he said, his voice like iron. “There is nothing you need to know, Sam. Nothing. Do you understand me?” 

Dean squeezed his little brother’s shoulder lightly, his eyes softening. “Just…trust me on this one,” he said gently. “Okay?” 

Sam simply nodded, needing a moment to swallow the emotions that were threatening to spill before he spoke further. He hadn’t missed the desperation that had tinged Dean’s or the glint of fear and pain that had been in his eyes; and Sam knew that his brother had been remembering his own time in Hell, and what toll those memories had taken on him. Sam remembered all too well the nightmares that had haunted Dean after Castiel had pulled him out of Hell. 

Sam thought back to that time, how hard it had been for Dean to recover after spending forty years in The Pit at the hands of Alastair. A small shudder ran through him. As horrendous and horrific as that had been for his brother, Sam suddenly realized that he had been there almost four times longer. 

Locked in a cage with two very powerful, very angry Archangels. 

Archangels that he had trapped there. 

Suddenly the term ‘curiosity killed the cat’ took on a whole new meaning. Sam knew that even as strong as he was, breaching the wall would cause a flood that nothing could  
contain or stop. 

“Don’t worry.” he said as he locked gazes with Dean. “You have my word. I have absolutely no intention of ‘scratching that itch.’ I promise.” 

Dean held Sam’s gaze, distant crickets filling the pre-dawn silence as he studied his younger brother. The full moon had slipped out from behind the clouds, bathing them both in its pale glow and Dean could see the sincerity clearly written in his hazel eyes, hear the honesty in his words, 

“Good,” he said finally, hoping beyond hope that it would be that simple to keep the Wall from crumbling. 

“So,” Sam asked skeptically, clearing his throat, needing to lighten the mood for both of them. “We’re trusting my future sanity on a Horseman now, huh?” 

“Well, it is a step up from trusting a Demon,” Dean drawled, and didn’t even bother to hide the smirk at the bitch-face that his little brother leveled at him. It had been over a week, ten days to be exact, since he’d gotten Sam back. He had been waiting; searching for any sign that the essence of his little brother, what made Sam his Sammy, had survived his captivity. This, this was the first real sign of Sammy to surface, and God how he’d missed him. 

“He gave us a seventy-five percent guarantee that it would work, bro. Basically, no strings attached,” Dean said, the joking and sarcasm gone from his voice. “In this line of work you don’t get any better odds than that. We’ve never had odds like that in out favor. 

“Besides,” he continued, the classic Dean Winchester grin on his face, “this is the guy who’s going to reap God someday, dude. That’s some serious mojo at work.” 

Despite the emotions and memories weighing him down, Sam couldn’t help but laugh. A lot had changed over the past few years, but certain things had remained constant. He could always count on his brother’s humor, however inappropriate, to make itself known in any situation. 

“So,” Dean asked expectantly. 

“So?” Sam stared at him, the confusion evident on his face. “So, what?” 

“You certainly didn’t come out here in the cold, dead of night to admire the beautiful scenery. What’s going on in that sasquatch size brain of yours?” Dean nudged him with his shoulder. “Free chick-flick moment,” he said teasingly. “Offer expires soon. Come on, you know you want to.” 

Sam rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands between his legs as he glanced at Dean, his mouth working to form words that didn’t come. He sighed. 

“Talk to me, Sammy,” Dean pleaded. “You’re not in this alone.” 

There was so much he wanted to say. So much he needed to say. The problem was stopping the merry-go-round that had taken up residence in his brain long enough so he could think straight. 

“Some things are so clear, you know. Others…” Sam shrugged, “I don’t know. It’s like I’m in the audience watching a movie or something. My body was up here for a long time without me; an entire year alone before you became it’s moral compass.” His voice shuddered as he continued, “I know I did some horrible things.” 

A piece of Dean’s heart broke as the sight of his little brother’s slumped form beside him looking so lost. “I will say it a million times if I have to, Sammy. That. Wasn’t. You. Don’t force it. If the memories come back, they come back and we‘ll deal with them together. You don’t have to remember.” 

Sam nodded absentmindedly in agreement as he continued. “He just had so much power. I could feel him pushing me further and further into the back of my mind, taking control; already starting to feel like I was losing myself. 

“I can clearly remember us being in the hotel in Detroit, saying the big Yes… .and then…” Sam took a deep breath and blew it out. “I don’t even know how much time passed, next thing I knew we were at Stull facing Michael. 

“I remember Michael and…” Sam hesitated, he almost said himself, but it hadn’t actually been him. “…Lucifer yelling. Taunting each other. Trying my hardest to grab a hold of Lucifer, get control back.” Sam’s breath hitched and he drew in a shaky breath. “But every time I would get one tiny hold, I would get pushed further and further back. 

“And, then they both went silent. I couldn’t understand why; what had happened. And then I heard it; that low, unmistakable rumble as it tore through the gate, music blaring.” he smiled as he turned his head to glance at Dean, “It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. 

“I wish you could have seen Michael’s face when he realized what it was,” Sam said, with a light chuckle. “You really pissed the two of them off.” 

Dean bit back the retort that almost emerged. He had known exactly how angry he had made the two rogue Archangels. He had suffered the beating at Lucifer’s hand for it. But if he had it to do all over again, he wouldn’t change a thing. 

He locked eyes with Sam, putting as much feeling and emphasis into his expression as he could; once again making sure that his brother knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he wasn’t to blame for what had happened. It had been Lucifer’s hands inflicting the pain and injury, not his. 

“Well, you know me,” Dean said sarcastically. “My day is never complete without pissing off a few dicks with wings.” 

Sam laughed, his dimples deepening as his lips curved up into a grin. “Well, you more than succeeded, bro.” 

“Dean,” Sam glanced beside him, then hesitated a moment, “I want…I need to thank you.” 

“Sammy, you don’t…” 

“No, Dean. Let me finish. Please,” 

The quiet plea, combined with his patented puppy dog eyes was Dean’s undoing. It always had been. It worked just as well now as it had when the kid had been four years old and asking him for the last of the cereal. We should really figure out how to use that expression as a damn weapon. Dean swallowed any further protest he might have had and gave his brother a small nod to continue. 

“I could hear you, at the cemetery; talking to me, encouraging me, telling me that you were there for me.” Sam cleared his throat in an attempt to wrestle his emotions under control. 

“I remember what you told me before we went to Detroit, that you would be there and support me with the entire insane plan. But after everything I’d done, I never expected…” Sam’s voice broke again and he lowered his head, “…never thought I deserved you to be there for me. You’ve always had my back, have always been there for me whether I thought I needed you or not. You’ve always looked out for me.” 

Sam looked at his older brother with tear brimmed eyes. “Having to watch me jump into that pit, and not do anything to stop me, I know how painful that must have been for you. That it went against every instinct you have. 

“I knew I wasn’t alone; you gave me the strength I needed, Dean. And I know, even though I can’t remember The Cage, I know that it helped carry me through.” 

Dean swallowed thickly, fighting down the emotions to find his voice. “I couldn’t let you face that alone. I knew, if there was one person that could pull it off, it was you. You have a lot of good in you, Sammy. Somewhere along the way, you grew up on me. You’re not the snot-nosed little brat who used to follow me around everywhere and who I had to look after.” He looked at Sam out of the corner of his eyes, “You’re still a gigantic pain in my ass though.” Dean grinned at the small sheepish smile that came briefly to his little brother’s face. 

“You overpowered the freakin’ Devil, dude,” Dean said with pride. “Beat him at his own game.”

Dean’s eyes were bright with unshed tears as he continued hoarsely, “We’ve both screwed up six ways to Hell and back, but no matter what had happened between us, no matter what ever happens between us, we’re family. A pretty damn dysfunction one,” he said with a shrug, “but family none the less. Brothers. That trumps everything. We’re stronger together, Sammy. Always have been, always will.”

Dean scrubbed a hand along his jaw line. “So whadaya say from now on, we do things our way. Winchester style; killing evil sons of bitches and raising a little hell. Heaven, Hell, Destiny, Angels, Demons…screw ‘em all.” 

“Sounds like a plan,” Sam said nodding, his voice gruff and quivering with emotion. He blinked hard as the salvage yard suddenly blurred in front of his eyes. He made no attempt to hide the tears that ran down his cheeks at Dean’s heartfelt loving words. It had been such a long time since he felt this kind of connection to Dean; felt like brothers. Lies and secrets had driven a wedge between them, and he had thought that he’d never be able to get that back. But, his older brother was right; family trumps everything. They were brothers; stronger together. This time nothing would pull them apart. 

They sat quietly side by side, each of them taking a moment to rein in the emotions that were still too close to the surface. The silence between them was comforting and familiar; the two of them, sitting together on the back of the Impala, looking out at the stars like they had a million times in the past. 

A thought suddenly came to Sam and he smirked, unable to resist the opportunity he had missed while his soul had been missing. “This new plan,” he started nonchalantly, “doing our own thing, telling Heaven, Angles, Demons and anyone else to go to hell; does this also include faeries?” The smirked on his face grew into a full dimpled smile. 

“You’re a regular comedian, aren’t you?” Dean quipped. 

“Dude, you nuked Tinkerbell,” Sam pointed out. “That’s extreme even for you.” 

“Hey, after what that little, glowing, naked lady and her grabby, incandescent douchebag friends tried to do to me on the…” Dean shivered dramatically, “I can’t even say the word.” 

“Probing table,” Sam offered. 

“Shut up,” Dean admonished. “She more than deserved it.” 

“I’m still not suppose to laugh, am I?” Sam said, already laughing. 

“Sure. Go ahead. Laugh it up fuzz ball,” Dean retorted. “This coming from the man who had his butt kicked by Lucky Charms.” 

“Hey, you try fighting a three foot leprechaun with a magic shillelagh. See how well you do.” 

“That sounds pretty kinky, Sammy-boy.” There it was again, Sam’s bitch face. Dean chuckled, man it felt so good to tease his little brother again. 

Sam shook his head. “How messed up are our lives that we find none of this even remotely strange?” 

“After the past few years that we’ve had Sammy, nothing surprises me anymore.” 

Sam slid off the end of the trunk and opened the back door of the Impala. Reaching in, he grabbed two bottles out of the cooler that they always kept stored there. Handing one to Dean, he leaned against the back of the car, legs crossed at the ankles. He opened his bottle and flicked the cap with two fingers, listening as it clattered down through the junk cars across the yard. Sam leaned over, clinking the neck of his bottle with Dean’s before taking a long swig. 

Dean raised his own beer to his lips, feeling the cool liquid as it ran down his throat. “Not that I’m complaining or anything,” he said, glancing at Sam. “But, as the older, more responsible one here I feel it’s my place to ask.”

Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow at his older brother’s choice of words. 

Dean ignored his brother’s expression, and continued, motioning out at the still darkened sky. “But, isn’t it a bit early to be drinking?” 

“Someone once taught me,” Sam responded, the corner of his mouth curling up, “that as long as it’s still dark, it’s nighttime and technically not morning yet, so it’s still okay to drink.” 

“Now, that sounds like a very wise person,” Dean said with a wide grin. 

Sam matched his brother’s grin. “He has his moments.” 

“Bitch” 

“Jerk” 

 

~FIN~


End file.
